


Then and Now

by Missy



Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Community: schmoop_bingo, F/M, High School, Teenagers, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-21
Updated: 2010-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 07:42:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/134784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back in 1986, Joan Powers loved three things: the Sky High forensics team, Fun Dip, and Tommy Boomowski.  Sixteen years later she's pretty sure her feelings for Boomer have changed to fond exasperation.  Emphasis on 'pretty'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Then and Now

Back in 1986, Joan Powers loved three things: the Sky High forensics team, Fun Dip, and Tommy Boomowski. Years later, she would retain her love for two out of three of those things and realize her sixteenth year hadn’t been wasted. At least she had learned how to debate.

To be fair to Tommy, she hadn’t been completely invisible to him back then- just hopelessly friendzoned, his lab partner and the girl who made him toe the line in homeroom. When she finished growing up and planted roots for herself, she’d look back on the hours she’d wasted in study hall scribbling “Joan Boomowski” in composition books and slap her own forehead, amused, enthralled with her own youthful hubris.

That may just be why she doesn’t throw Layla Williams off the debate team for stopping in mid-counterpoint and staring out into the audience at Will Stronghold. She used to stare at Tommy that way, a long time ago, when he would toss his long hair back and laugh like a horse at something stupid Medulla had said.

She doesn’t know why. He used to light his farts on fire for fun.

When summer faded into winter and winter into another summer, Tommy hadn’t changed much – his voice could still shatter glass, and he would still rather hang out with his friends and drink beer and watching the cheerleaders practice than pay attention to his assignments. Joan, however, had begun to grow up – her crush on Tommy had never exploded into full-blown passion, and her drive for compassionate order had superseded almost everything else in her life.  
Joan also knew Tommy would hang around her now and again; because – then as now – he looked to her for leadership. Everyone did back then. That was why he had gone to her for advice when Jane Thompson got mono before the prom. He was desperate, and he didn’t want to pick up Boy’s leftovers (his term, from a time when Boy had leftovers at his disposal – there had been some perks to being the Commander’s sidekick-in-training) . He asked Joan’s forehead if it wanted to go to the prom.

By that time she had nearly been over her crush; the final forensics meet with Xavier Institute was coming up, and that had sucked up most of her concentration. But the way he’d asked her, the rare note of sincerity in the voice and the fact that he wasn’t shouting it at top-volume made Joan think it over.

She finally agreed after Tommy promised not to bring his lighter.

Joan didn’t know how she felt about him when they arrived at the dance together. She wasn’t surprised when he pulled a small flask of brandy from the coat pocket of his electric blue sports jacket and poured its contents into the punchbowl . She allowed herself one glass, but Tommy kept drinking until his cheeks turned red and his eyes took on a merry glow.

Then he asked her to dance.

In her freshman dreams, Tommy Boomowski had been an elegant waltzer. In reality, he could sort of Battusi. But he was fun, if completely disorientating to dance with, and could almost pull her out of her commanding shell.

By the time the prom broke up she was sweaty and in need of a good shower. They ended up back in his truck, down by Cocoon Lake, with the last of the brandy.

He had been telling her a dirty joke about waffle makers and a very inventive masochist when his laugh brought him across the forbidden divide of the gear shaft to brush against her shoulder. Tommy smiled at her blearily.

“Y’know, Joanie, you’re really cute when you smile.” The old, youthful flames jumped to life in Patti’s chest. She smiled confidently back at him.

“This way?”

“Yeah, like that.” Tommy chose that exact moment to make his move and banged his head against the roof of the car. **”OW!”** he exclaimed, the vibration of the words rattling the car and cracking its double-enforced-for-safety window glass.

‘Joanie’ groaned at the missed opportunity. Then she grabbed Boomer by the collar and yanked him over into her seat, planting her lips on his.

He grunted into her mouth, took her tongue into his own and tried to twist his around hers. Joan grabbed the back of Tommy’s head and tried to anchor herself to his mouth that way. It was awkward, and not anything at all like her high school daydreams. But under it all a thrill coursed between them. Tommy could clearly feel it too. “Joanie,” he grunted into her mouth, making her teeth rattle.

Joan didn’t hear the policeman approach the truck until his voice shattered the still of the moment. She was so startled that she turned to a flaming ball of gas right there in his arms.

Tommy’s scream shattered every window in Northridge County.

***

She had forgotten about that little incident entirely by the time she heard from Tommy again. By then, everyone knew her as the Shooting Star, fearless leader of the Super Alliance; by then she was also Joanne Powers, superintendent of schools, highly respected woman about town and the faculty’s sweetheart. He was Sonic Boom, man of action, leader of the Justice Pack, and Tom Boomowski, quarterback for the Millville Argonauts and notorious ladykiller.

And they both wanted the same apartment on the east side of town.

Joan found herself sitting on the floor drawing short straws with Tommy while he talked about his new contract and his mission to Bulgaria to catch a group of notorious bandits (“No one warned me that their biggest business was a glassmaking plant!”). Joan had the powers of probability and distraction on her side – it wasn’t an accident that she picked the longest one.

He wasn’t quite gracious in defeat as they stood in the doorway. “You owe me a case of beer,” he said, staring at her. He looked at their clean and quiet surroundings corrected himself, “two cases.”

“You can buy your own, Boom,” she said lightly. “Unless you’re working for peanuts in the NFL.” Each letter of the acronym weighed heavily on her tongue, as he had shot himself in the foot by spending the previous half hour talking to her about his new contract.

He shifted his shoulders and put on his sunglasses; he hated being outfoxed. Boomer tossed her one last look over his shoulder. “I’ll see you around, Joanie.”

But she didn’t see him again for another ten years.

****

It didn’t surprise her that she ended up back in Sky High, but Joan was nonetheless flattered when the governing body of superhero education elected her principal of Sky High. He was already on the faculty, a knee injury having wrecked his football career, a divorce embittering him and leaving him single. Tommy had grown from an irresponsible man to a rash, order-loving hardass who preferred to be called ‘Boomer’. Those qualities had probably always been in the Tommy she’d known from his youth, but she had never seen beyond her rose-colored glasses.

Joan could still recognize her youthful self in the adult who sat in an elegant evening gown with Boomer on the school’s front steps. They were both embarrassed that they hadn’t been able to protect the students from Royal Pain, yet proud that the sidekicks had managed to restore order.

Boomer walked her back into the dance, complaining endlessly that he could’ve done more. Exhausted and tired of his complaints, Joan took him by the hand and led him onto the dance floor. Redirecting Boomer’s anger into something productive usually worked.

“Can you still Battusi?” she asked.

He frowned at her for a moment before shrugging. Someone in the freshman class had been passing his yearbook picture around, so dancing a fad 60’s dance in front of them seemed like a minor social infraction.

When the song ended they walked off the dance floor together to the refreshment table. Bringing her a cup of punch, Boomer bent to kiss her hand.

“Did you spike this?” she wondered, taking a sip.

He laughed. “If anyone did it, it’d be one of our hooligans.”

She snorted at his vocabulary, and he reached over to tentatively cup her cheek. For a moment, neither of them said anything, until he finally told her, “you’ve still got a nice grin, Joanie.”

She smiled back at him. “This one?”

“That one,” he said gruffly, his thumb caressing her chin briefly before turning back to Medulla, laughing at some shouted comment that Joan couldn’t hear.

THE END


End file.
